NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that now is the perfect time for buildings to convert to cleaner heating fuels and the city wants to help them do it, WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported.

Bloomberg announced that the city has lined up $100 million in financing from banks to help buildings make the conversion from oil to cleaner fuels like natural gas.

His Honor pointed out that natural gas prices are at historic lows.

He said 80 percent of the air pollution in New York City comes from buildings.

He said the reason for converting is simple.

“While only 1 percent of the buildings in the city, some 10,000 in total, use these heavy grades of oil, burning them generates more soot than all the cars and trucks on our streets and roads combined,” he said. “Smoking kills a lot of people, but so does all this crap in the air.”

The mayor said that with low natural gas prices, available financing, and the resulting cleaner air, it’s kind of hard not to find a reason to convert.

However, utilities are now swamped with conversion orders.

What do you think of the mayor’s incentive for buildings to convert? Sound off in the comments section below.